Hi readers, and welcome back to my semi-regular road through 2025. Last time, I’d played in a 2 day GT, and was about to attend a narrative event. This time, we’ll be catching up on what I’ve been up to since then, covering three weeks and getting ourselves back onto a fortnightly schedule. We’ve got the aforementioned narrative event, some hobby, and a 2k AoS teams event to cover. Onwards!

Hobby

As mentioned last time, I got a custom character finished to go alongside my Gitmob models at ShadowCon. He’s a model from the Grinkrak’s Looncourt Underworlds warband, although I’ve swapped his mallet/lance hybrid for a speartip from a Snarlfang unit, to keep him on-theme.

Converted Gitz character. Probably a Boingrot Bounder from now on. Credit: Rich Nutter

I was trying to convey a couple of things with this model. Firstly, his armour is intended to look like the sunmetal that appears elsewhere in the army, for instance on Droggz’ big sun crest. I reckon that came out well. Secondly, I have been wondering for a while how to make things like Squigs fit into the desert-themed force, and I settled on making them look like either tumbleweeds or cacti. The tumbleweed plan seemed like it would take a lot of effort and sculpting/converting, so I settled on cactus, and then had the inspired (in my opinion) to paint them like the classic Warhammer ball cactus, deep greens and red spikes. I reckon it conveys the theme pretty well, without being immediately obvious.

After ShadowCon I was feeling quite inspired, so I built a Squig Herd and spent some time sculpting over the mushrooms that attach some of them to their bases. The idea was to replace them with vaguely desert-like rock pillars, and I reckon my rudimentary sculpting skills have done the job here once they get some paint on them.

Over in the 40k world, I got to preview the new Wolf Scouts Kill Team. These are great sculpts, and I wish I’d had a bit more time to dedicate to them. I’m going to go back and layer/weather over some bits, I think, as well as doing a general tidy up.

Wolf Scouts Kill Team. Credit: Rich Nutter

Finally, I started batch painting some Reclusians, Prosecutors and a Lord Terminos for my Stormcast army, ready for the other event I was attending. Unfortunately I had a catastrophic issue with a paint/wash combo, and they were beyond saving on the day before the event! More on that later.

ShadowCon 25: Relics of the Realms

ShadowCon (formerly “A Shadow In The West”) is a regular feature in my calendar at this point. Narrative Event Organisers (NEOs) Ol, Jon and Damien pour 110% effort into making the event as fun as possible for the attendees, and they’ve got something like a 90%+ retention rate of players year to year to show for it. They’re supported by their fantastically generous partners too, doing all of the important stuff like running a bar and providing baked goods to keep players’ energy topped up through the day. In return, players really throw them into the narrative aspects of the weekend, with custom armies, rules, and costumes aplenty.

Structurally, the event is simple enough. Attending as teams of four representing a settlement or area within the region of Hysh covered by the event, players play games across the weekend to collect resources that can be spent on the meta-plot activities. Wins obviously net you more resources, but losers aren’t left with nothing, meaning that your team can still get lucky and make progress.

Droggz and his motley gang of ladz prepare for war. Credit: Rich Nutter

Between rounds comes the “council phase”, where different members of your team fulfil different roles - cracking riddles, trading currency for artefacts, or attending the region’s high council to vote on policy decisions that would affect subsequent rounds. The end goal of this: collecting the 9 pieces of your region’s legendary Shard of Sigmar weapon, and assembling it. These were literal chunks of 3d printed and painted human-size swords and similar! An amazing effort by the team. There was no guarantee that the piece you’d receive would be for your weapon, leading to a further level of bargaining with other teams.

We eventually managed to complete our weapon - the standout moment being desperately scrabbling together a pool of currency knowing that we might need to pay over the odds to get our final piece out of someone else’s hands, followed by the much harder task of maintaining a straight face when presented with an “immutable final offer” price that turned out to be about 25% of what we could have paid.

Tiny boy facing off against Laura's large Aggradon. Credit: Rich Nutter

Weapon complete, we then had to power it up with surplus currency for the last couple of rounds. In the end, our team was betrayed at the last moment by our Skaven player (go figure) who conspired with another ratman to taint the supply of currency with warpstone, before loading all of it into a rival team’s weapon. This gave that team the first chance of winning the weekend, but also, crucially, blew them to smithereens. Another team got the win, and later on the perfidious ratman let us know out of character that before he’d considered betraying us, he’d made sure that he wouldn’t be denying us victory by doing so - even with all of our currency refined, we wouldn’t have had the highest total. Still, perhaps we shouldn’t have left a Skaven in charge of our treasury.

Overall the weekend was a blast as always - I had fun, engaging games with all of my opponents, the theme was really engaging, and the entertainment around the weekend was great fun too - shout out to the timeless Taskmaster game, “Laminator or Horse”.

If you’d like to attend ShadowCon next year, keep an eye on ShadowCon25 on Bluesky.

Age of Sigmar Team Championships 2025, Warhammer World

Last weekend was a big weekend for Age of Sigmar, with the World Championships of Warhammer ongoing in the USA and the Six Nations team event happening elsewhere in the UK. At Warhammer World in Nottingham however it was time for the annual Age of Sigmar Team Championship. I was attending the event as part of a 4-person team from The Mighty Redeployers, a mostly London-based club with a few members (like me) from further away. I was running Stormcast, and alongside me we had Krzysztof with Skaven, Phil with Tzeentch, and Mark with Kharadron Overlords.



A slight edit from my Mercia Madness list, I’m pretty happy with this. I’m testing out my theory that people have been too quick to abandon the Longstrike Crossbows - I’ve tried a few different options, and I just haven’t felt that the Knight-Judicators have done enough by comparison. I do have to give up on taking any Vigilors to fit them around Iridan and the Ruination units though.

Stormcast Eternals Stormcoven. Credit: Rich Nutter

I was keen to try and keep to 2 drops with this list, too. With a big damage threat like the Raptors, and a slow moving hammer/anvil combo in the Reclusians, I can potentially get a lot of energy out of a double turn between 1&2 or 2&3, and so winning the deployment game and going 2nd in the first battle round is the goal, to unlock that possibility.

I did wonder about taking something like Nighthaunt instead, as it might have slotted better into our team composition. As it is, we decided that taking something I have 50+ games of experience with would trump taking something that might be technically better, but that I would have one or two games with at best. A good choice, I think.

Friday

I probably wouldn’t normally bother talking about the Friday, given that it consisted of arriving late at an AirBnB and catching up with the guys, but I experienced a waking nightmare that bears repeating. I was rushing through painting the last bits of my army when I slopped a wash all over the models, only to find it immediately softening/lifting a load of paint! This wasn’t some weird acidic wash, just Citadel Drakenhof Nightshade with a bit of Vallejo airbrush thinner and a dot of flow improver. My working theory is that the metallic paint I’d airbrushed on was somehow uncured or bad, and the wetness of the wash combined with the brushing was enough to rub it off, taking other layers of paint with it. Who knows. Anyway, what a nightmare!

The Iridan/Relictor I borrowed. Credit: Will R

GW events are fully-painted as standard, so I had no chance of just turning up with the models re-primed. I rang around a lot of friends, and discovered that nobody really had exactly what I needed, or was on holiday. Having resigned myself to a painting assembly line in the accommodation, which the team had graciously agreed to help with, I was saved at the last moment by local pals Will and Ben, who between them own Stormcast armies painted in the same scheme and were able to rustle up my entire list. I ended up piloting an army several times nicer than the quality of my own all weekend, which was a nice bonus. Huge thanks to them for stepping in to save me at the last minute.

Game 1 -  Roiling Roots vs Stak’s Soulblight Gravelords

I’m not going for a full blow-by-blow of each game, but I’ll cover the main beats. Stak was great fun, and a really nice first round opponent. We set up and I gave him first turn, as planned. Stak moved forward, including dropping the Draconith and Vargeists on my left flank, and scored a 20 point turn 1. In return, I struck - Iridan killed the Vargheists, the Questors left the Draconith on 1 wound, and heartbreakingly the Longstrikes also left the Vengorian Lord on a couple of wounds on the other flank. This was brutal, as it meant Iridan died in return, and I also failed to pop part 1 of Master the Paths for killing a hero.

Facing off vs Stak's SBGL. Credit: Rich Nutter

I got the double and did finish off the Vengorian Lord and the dragon, although I made an error here and teleported the Stormcoven to hold Stak’s back objective even though I couldn’t score tactics, so they died to a counter charge. I set up some board control, but Stak took a double into 3 and just killed a lot of my army. I did get 20 points in my turn 3, but ultimately I still had a lot of Barrow Guard and skeletons to chew through and couldn’t get the win.

Result: 50-65 loss

In hindsight, I maybe shouldn’t have given Stak the first turn here, and if I’d looked at his battle tactics more closely I wouldn’t have. Denying that early turn 1 20 points could have been crucial later, and I didn’t ultimately get much out of the double turn and opened myself up to a counter in the process. Stak was a great opponent though, and the game was chill throughout.

Team Result - 3 wins, 1 loss

I was our only loss this round, with everyone else taking out their matchups. 3-1 was a nice position for round 2, as it meant we probably weren’t heading straight for a brutal top table matchup.

Game 2 - Lifecycle vs Martin’s Daughters of Khaine

The good times continued in round 2 - Martin was a super fun opponent, and we chatted a lot through the rest of the weekend. He’d brought a Morathi-fronted DoK list the likes of which I’m quite familiar with, although I hadn’t faced SoG Krethusa before. Her prayer is scary!

I gave Martin turn 1, and he decided to commit. I’d spread my lines a bit knowing this might be the case, stacking the Raptors behind the Reclusians. Martin made charges with the Shadow Queen 10 Blood Sisters, and the Ironscale, all reaching the Reclusians. The Shadow Queen has strikes first, so I popped the same on the Terminos, hoping to beat the Blood Sisters at least. Thankfully he opted to put all of big Morathi’s attacks into the Stormcoven, killing them early and grabbing a Ghyranite treasure but leaving the Reclusians at full strength, who alongside the Terminos picked up the Ironscale and all but 3 or so of the Blood Sisters, alongside putting the first 3 wounds on Morathi. This is great for me - I had part 1 of Master the Paths in the bag, Morathi locked down with my most resilient unit, and a third of the rest of Martin’s army dead. In my turn I kept wounding Morathi, shot at some more Blood Sisters, and finished off the first unit in combat. I dropped the Prosecutors to charge Krethusa and the Witch Elves, which they failed after a clutch redeploy, and moved Iridan/the Questors up behind them.

Morathi (big) and her snakes charge in. Credit: Rich Nutter

Martin got the turn, and my Prosecutors’ failed charge ended up working in my favour - on Martin’s turn the Witch Elves got absolutely powered up by Krethusa’s prayer, but could only charge the Prosecutors, who were now a convenient screen. They got obliterated. In return I could charge Iridan in to do some damage. Morathi died in my turn 2 and that really controlled the rest of the game, especially after I took a double to clean up. A round 3 tabling gave me time to score through the rest of my battle tactics.

Result: 73-39 Win

Pleased with this one, a big VP score (one of the overall tie breakers) and a confident approach - I took the decision to feed Martin his Intercept targets, acknowledging I’d lose the points but in return Martin would be motivated to focus on them instead of killing my Reclusians quickly.

Team Result: 4 Wins

A great round for the team - we got all four wins, and scored 283 of a maximum of 320 VPs.

Game 3 - Creeping Corruption vs Nick’s Slaves to Darkness

Nick had a really beautiful army, that he’d just finished painting the night before. Unfortunately he’d also left his 10 Chaos Warriors at home, so they were being represented by 10 Ultramarines borrowed from the TO. I suddenly knew I wouldn’t have felt so bad about my speed painted army if it had come to that.

I got the priority on the roll off, and gave Nick the first turn. He correctly saw my plan (try to bait some long charges) so played it cagey and only sent 5 Fellriders forwards. Nick and I both scored some primary in T1, and then I took the double turn. Everything engaged here - the Prosecutors made it into the Lord and Knights (having tried in round 1 but settling for fighting the terrain piece instead), with the Questors hitting the Knights from the other side, and the Terminos/Reclusians engaging the Chaos Warriors. Nick decided to counter charge with his Varanguard, taking them sideways into the big Knight brawl. BR2 was pretty chaotic as a result. At the end of the turn 9 of the Warriors and 5 of the Knights were down, in exchange for 3 Reclusians, a Questor, and the Prosecutors. Not a huge trade, but Nick was now tied down in his board half.

Brawling with Nick's cavalry. Credit: Rich Nutter

The Knights did a retreat plus Tzeentch teleport to take my backfield objective, but the Questors made a counter charge to deny it. In turn 3 Iridan went in on the Varanguard, and then just managed to stay alive for the rest of the game when they really shouldn’t have, killing a couple of big horses a turn. Scoring had been close for the first 3 rounds and the game remained tight, but in the end the Stormcast took the W.

Result: 61-50 Win

Another performance I’m happy with; I think I identified the threats and tried to stop the charges correctly. I didn’t anticipate the Varanguard counter charge, but it ended up working in my favour.

Team Result: 4 Wins

Another cracking win for the lads. We were where we wanted to be, table 1, and had won 11/12 of our games at this point. Time for some well-earned pizza, drinks, and sleep.

Game 4 - Cyclic Shifts vs Seb’s Ossiarch Bonereapers

This round we paired into South London Legion, another London-based club that many of us are also members of. I was paired into Seb’s Bonereapers, which I thought was probably a hard matchup but enabled Mark to face off against Soulblight instead, which his KO would fare better against.

It was a hard match up indeed! Seb deployed really well, with a well-screened and impenetrable castle that advanced slowly, with heroes protected by multiple overlapping buffs. The critical point came in turn 2, when Seb came forward to score Attuned to Ghyran. I made long charges with my Terminos and Reclusians, but ended up putting them into Katakros instead of the Morghasts that I had (correctly) identified as the major threat on the board. This was a game-losing mistake. I lost almost everything in exchange for like 2 damage on Katakros, and then the Questors that had also hit the Morghasts only did 2 damage there too. A completely wasted turn.

In a bind vs Seb. Credit: Rich Nutter

I was on the back foot here, and knew I couldn’t win. I’m proud of the way I played from here on though - I never gave up and decided to maximise VP for the team, and in the end had a few decent scores in turns 3-5 to hold Seb to a close win.

Result: 63-71 Loss

Closer than I expected! This was a great game, Seb and I haven’t played before (or for a long time, at least) and he was a super technical player. I feel like I learned a lot, which might be relevant later. Foreshadowing!

Team Result: 2 Wins, 2 Losses

Our hardest round so far! Mark and Phil put up great wins, whilst Krzysztof and I took losses. The tournament decider was on tournament points (3 per 1, 1 per draw), so this round being 2-2 overall didn’t matter in the sense of being an overall draw vs a clear win, but it definitely made us feel more precarious.

Game 5 - Linked Ley Lines vs Delano’s Ossiarch Bonereapers

Well, this looks familiar! This is incredibly similar to Seb’s list, and it would turn out that Seb had kind of “borrowed” it from one of Delano’s teammates after a previous tournament. Delano was part of Battle Barbies, who had sent a pair of teams to the event and we’d guessed would be one of the hardest matchups. I volunteered to fall on the Bonereapers sword again to get some clearly better matchups in other places, and hoped that my learning from the previous round would help.

Giving Delano turn 1, turned the middle objective Obscuring and then moved Katakros up onto it. Delano played this quite differently to Seb, putting Katakros and Arkhan at the front and getting the buffs layered onto them from pieces behind them. In my opinion he made a slight mistake here, although there’s no doubting that it had done well for him in previous games so far. The Immortis Guard are really important for keeping the characters alive with the boosted ward, and they hadn’t been able to keep up with Katakros and Arkhan after some big runs to the centre. The Morghasts had also stacked up behind the duo, meaning the Immortis Guard wouldn’t find it easy to get close to both of them.

On my turn, Delano correctly identified that I couldn’t shoot Katakros as he was obscured. This was true, and I moved the Longstrikes into position to shoot at Arkhan, trying to bait a redeploy to protect him at Katakros’ expense. Unfortunately he rolled well enough to get them into range of both big characters. I’d also moved up my Terminos and Reclusians though, so Katakros wasn’t out of the woods yet. In the shooting phase the Longstrikes did a bit of damage to Arkhan, but crucially the Knight-Relictor rolled his 2+ ability to lower Katakro’s ward by 1. This meant that even with his combat phase ability and the Immortis Guard, he’d only be warding on 5s and I had a chance to kill him. Delano had assumed that this ability required vision, but it doesn’t, and so the Obscuring objective didn’t protect him from it.

There used to be a Katakros in the middle there. Credit: Rich Nutter

The Terminos fought, and got a couple of damage through. Then the Reclusians fought - it’s worth noting that they were juiced up here. Bless Weapons was up for an extra attack, alongside Iridan’s prayer for an extra point of rend. They were also Finest Hour’d, so the block was doing 25 attacks at 2+, 2+, rend 2, 2 damage, with Crit Mortals too. They saw the opportunity to kill a demigod and did not dissapoint, delivering 14 damage worth of mortals alongside 16 more unsaved damage. 30 ward rolls! Delano rolled the wards, but it wasn’t quite enough, and big K went down.

To say I breathed a sigh of relief at this point is probably an understatement, but I wasn’t out of the woods with Arkhan and Morghasts cruising around still. Ultimately I could control the rest of the game though, picking key items off one at a time until only the Archai were left - I didn’t have a huge amount left either by this point, but scoring had gone my way.

Result: 76-44

Hugely pleased with this! Delano is a great player, and I was able to capitalise on a small error. Getting lucky on the Reclusians’ damage obviously didn’t hurt either.

 

Team Result: 3 Wins, 1 Loss

Mark and Phil picked up wins to both go 5-0 over the weekend (a first for both of them!), and Krzysztof took a loss against a Pyregheist-heavy Nighthaunt list that none of us wanted to fight. Games done, we waited with baited breath for the awards ceremony, and…

The Mighty Redeployers, victorious!

We won!! I’m so pleased, this is my first GT level win, and I obviously couldn’t have done it without the teams’ amazing prep and play. Thanks especially to captain Krzysztof for doing a ton of work on pairings, and Mark for managing the in-round admin. It was by no means an easy feat to get here, but I’m really proud of some of our overall stats for the weekend: we won 16/20 games for an 80% win rate, and scored a total of 1484/1600 victory points - dropping an average of less than 6 points per game, even factoring in our losses. It was great to make a plan and execute on it, and come out successful! Thanks to all of our opponents, it was a big challenge but even so every single game was fun and friendly as well.

Next Time

Assuming I can stop vibrating with excitement for more than 20 minutes after that win, I’m looking forward to a quieter couple of weeks. I’ve got a friendly game planned with my pal Dan, and I’ve also started putting some paint on my Stormcast again. Here’s a preview of the Lord-Terminos!

Stormcast Eternals Lord-Terminos. Credit: Rich Nutter

See you in 2 weeks for the next update.

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